Monthly Archives: September 2011

I love birthdays! Having Everyone call me and wish me a great day, the wonderful cards, thoughtful presents and I also love this time of the year. The fall scenery is breath-taking, I love the autumn leaf colors, and the crisp, early mornings. When I was a kid, one year on my birthday we set out on a camping trip. Before we had left, my best friend Lillian gave me my gift to take and open on the way. It was so heavy! For hours I thought about what it could possibly be in this wonderfully wrapped box that weighed so much! I had to wait 24 hours for my official birthday before I could unwrap the present. On the night of my birthday, as I sat down around the campfire with family and friends, all eyes were on me as I began to unwrap the gifts, I saved Lillian’s for last. After I had finished with the others, in increasing excitement I opened the one very large, neatly wrapped box. The first box inside the great big box was filled with rocks, inside the next box was even more rocks, and then another with more rocks! All my relatives were laughing and laughing until finally I reached a small little box filled with some kind of jewelry that I can’t quite recall. Yet, it was a wonderful memory of all the aunts and uncles and cousins wailing with laughter around the campfire! Thanks Lillian! So glad we are still friends and so happy you like the story!! :)……….

“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”Audrey Hepburn

A Givenchy Haute Couture white point d’esprit ball gown worn by Audrey Hepburn in the opera scene of “Love in the Afternoon” in 1956

“Off to the Oyster Beds,” a painting found at a garage sale, led the buyer, Davis Dutton, on a several-year search for the painter, Jessey Dorr, and for information on why she ended her promising painting career early. Photo courtesy of the Davis Dutton Collection

Six years ago on a warm, fall Saturday afternoon, my wife, Judy, and I were heading back to our bookstore in the San Fernando Valley. We had just wasted half the day at a disappointing book sale in West Los Angeles. The prices had been high, the merchandise mediocre — lots of book club fiction, an abundance of out-of-date textbooks and not much else. So when we saw the garage sale sign on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, we weren’t terribly optimistic. It was after 3 o’clock, and by now the books would have been picked over. Nevertheless, we decided to give it a try.

We followed the arrows to an attractive English-style house, just off Valley Vista Boulevard. As we’d predicted, the garage was practically empty, just a few paperbacks and some tools that hadn’t sold.

“General Jackson. ” And Bust – “J.R. / Laird. S.C. Pitt.” And Eagle Portrait Flask, John Robinson Manufacturers, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1820-1840. Brilliant yellow green, inward rolled mouth – pontil scar, pint; (a reflection adjacent to a bubble at the interior of the base at the left side of the Jackson bust that occurred at the time of manufacture).
GII-66 Extremely rare mold in an extremely rare color, perhaps unique. Particularly strong embossing. This flask was purchased by the consignor’s father in 1971 from a Mr. Ernie Burger who had purchased the flask from a house in North Dayton, Ohio. The price was $41.80. As the years went by Edmund Blaske offered $750 and later Roy Brown offered a new Cadillac for the bottle. It has been in the family for the last 39 years and safely stored in a box.

The first person to use a fish-shaped bottle was W. H. Ware, who patented the design in 1866. He used the container for his “Doctor Fischs Bitters.” The story is that the recipe for Fish Bitters was obtained from a Dr. Gottlieb of Berlin, Prussia. Bitters were advertised throughout the 1870-1880’s for dyspepsia, general debility, loss of appetite, and as an antidote to alcohol, even though bitters contained large amounts of alcohol itself.

This Fish bitters (W.H. Ware, 1866) made $9,520, including buyer’s premium. A small postone kept it from bringing more. Photo courtesy American Bottle Auctions.

A copy of Robert Thornton’s book The
Temple of Flora, unrestored, with a full complement of plates and
in an elegant binding, sold for $85,400 at a Fine Book Sale held June 23
by Bonhams in New York. Also, an archive relating to Frank Lloyd Wright
and his “New Theater” project in Hartford, Conn., including numerous
letters between Wright and the actor-director Paton Price, fetched
$27,450; and a first-edition copy of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s beloved bookAnne of Green Gables topped out at $17,690. Prices include a
20 percent buyer’s premium.

Thornton writes: “Nature has given her a vest of purest white, and also
imperial robes of the brightest scarlet; and that no rude hand should
tear her from her rich domain, she is protected by a myriad of soldiers,
who present on every side their naked and sharp swords against the
daring invader.”

Like this:

“I just wasn’t a big auction fan, but I am now.”

Imagine buying boxes of old textbooks for $10 and finding the unique piece of paper shown above inside. This 25-cent denomination Republic of Texas Exchequer Note, dated May 1, 1843 and hand-signed by legendary president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, was found last year by an Austin, Texas area couple in an old textbook. This early example of paper money sold for $63,250 in an auction conducted by Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, January 6, 2011.

“It’s a rare Republic of Texas Exchequer note in the amount of 25 cents, dated on May 1, 1843 and hand-signed by Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas,” said Allen Mincho of Heritage Auctions. “These notes were printed in various denominations between 1842 and 1845, but probably less than two dozen Texas Exchequer notes are known to survive today.” Most of the notes were destroyed when they were redeemed in the 1840s, the note in the auction shows no sign of cancellation meaning it was likely never redeemed for its 25 cents face value.

Bill and Cindy Farnsworth of the Austin area were surprised to find the old piece of paper money in September in a used book after returning home from a Southeast Texas auction where they had purchased 11 boxes of old textbooks for just $10. Bill Farnsworth recalled: “My wife called to me and said, ‘I thought you might like to have this.’ The first thing I noticed was that the paper was real thin. I knew enough to know that (modern) reproduction currency is made on much thicker paper.” He said he previously didn’t enjoy going to auctions as much as his wife did. “I just wasn’t a big auction fan, but I am now.”

The pre-sale estimate by Heritage was $50,000 or more; the winning bid of $63,250 was placed at the auction by an agent representing an anonymous Texas collector

World’s First Motorcycle Sells for $133,000

An unrestored 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmuller motorcycle, considered to be the world’s first production motorcycle, sold for $133,000 on April 25 at Bonhams auction the International Classic Bike Show in Staffordshire, UK. A private German collector paid the machine’s US owners $33,000 over the predicted sale price to be able to bring the original “motorrad” back home.

Nobody knows what you like better than you! I’m not a decorator just a regular gal who’s been collecting antiques and collectibles in her house for the last twenty-five years. I just purged those last 25 years of collecting and it feels good. I picked up ten decorating books at the thrift store a few days ago. I studied them for a few nights. It occurred to me, with all 10 books and a pair of scissors what great rooms we could master in just a few minutes.